Twelve Years a Slave

Whites have longed argued that slavery was good for slaves because it civilized them and that slaves were content to be held in bondage. But such is not the case, at least not according to those who were actually held in bondage. The accounts of slavery are greatly known by emancipated or run away slaves. One recorded account of slavery is by Solomon B. Northup's autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave which was published in 1853. Solomon Northup was born a freeman in New York in 1808 (3). His father, who had been a slave until his owner death had granted him his freedom in his, wills (5). In 1829, Northup married Anne Hampton and worked as a laborer in Hartford (6). However, Solomon was captured after being tricked by slave traders to work for them while working in Washington in 1841 and sold as a slave into Louisiana (15). A slave was considered in law as property, or chattel (Lecture Notes, 9-12-03), and was deprived of most rights ordinarily held by free persons. Slavery typically occurs in societies whose economy is of a market type capable of producing surpluses. Slavery existed over twohundred and forty years. Slaves were considered property rather than persons (AP, 96). They had few legal rights: in court, their testimony was inadmissible in cases involving whites (246, 247); they could make no contract nor own any property; even if attacked, they could not strike a white person (80); they could not be away from their owner's premises without permission; they could not assemble unless a white person was present; they could not be taught to read or write; and they were not permitted to marry. Offenders were subject to punishment, including whipping, branding, imprisonment, and death (81-83).

Magnolia Myth conception is singularly insulting, since it implies that slavery is ok, as long as slaves are treated well (Lecture Notes, 10/27-31/03). And it implies that as long as slave owners weren't beaten then bondage might even have been good for the slaves....

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...reading a copy of Solomon Northup's TwelveYears A Slave, I was overwhelmed with his experience. He was born a free man in New York in 1808. In 1841 he was tricked, captured, and sold into slavery in Washington, D.C. Throughout his book, Solomon goes into details describing his life as a slave, which validates our critique of slavery. As abolitionists, it is our duty to do something about slavery. Although, as abolitionists, we have a history of disagreements among us, it time to put stop to our arguments and start fighting for something we all believe in - to abolish slavery. While the growing cotton economy has made slavery more attractive than ever before to most southern people, slavery has to be abolished based on these reasons: first, because slaves are treated inhumanly; second, because it makes southern white society savage and cruel, and third, it turns southern whites into greedy and lazy people.
One of the main reasons that slavery should be abolished is because masters treat their slaves inhumanly. Masters disregard the idea of family among slaves. Although they encourage slave marriage, they do so out of selfish reasons. Slaves who have families are likely to have kids, who will become property of the master after birth, and at the same time they are least likely to run away. In addition, the actual law does not provide any protection...

...Brandon Butcher
4/27/13
TwelveYears a Slave
Solomon Northup was a free man, then lured to Washington D.C. and put into slavery from 1841 to 1853. His father, Mintus Northup, was owned by a family named Northup, who came from Rhode Island to New York. Henry B. Northup was a relative of that family. After the owner of Solomon’s father dies, his father is now a free man. Shortly after, his father moved to Essex county, N.Y., where Solomon Northup was born on July, 1808.
Solomon Northup married Anne Hampton, and had three children: Elizabeth, Margaret, and Alonzo. In March 1834, they moved to Saratoga Springs and lived in the U.S. Hotel. Solomon Northup was an excellent and well-known violin player. While walking on the corner of Broadway and Congress Street, he was met by two strangers: Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton. They had heard about his violin skills, and asked him to take part in their circus company. They were to travel around and perform. He was offered large amounts of money and a quick return. After taking the offer, they traveled around and Northup made a good bit of money. One day they offered to go to Washington D.C., a slave state at the time. He was promised to be taken care of and nothing would happen as long as he had his Free Papers. While Brown and Hamilton stopped at various saloons and were drinking, he became very ill. At the time, they were staying in the Gadsby’s Hotel on Pennsylvania...

...﻿Zaruta 1
Ryan Zaruta
EC American History
Miss Kimelewski
23 October 2014
TwelveYears A Slave
When comparing the book to the movie, there were a lot of differences in the movie. In the book, there were three children- Margaret, Elizabeth, and Alonzo, whereas in the movie, they only had two children- Alonzo and Margaret. In the beginning of the movie, two men- Brown and Hamilton, approached Solomon Northup in New York and offered him a job of playing the fiddle for a circus in Washington, but in the book, the two men told Solomon that his first job was in New York, but then convinced him into going to Philadelphia before their final offer of playing in Washington. When Solomon is held hostage in the slave pen, the book mentions that Burch’s overseer came in and gave Solomon dried up pork, yet in the movie, they only show Burch beating and whipping Solomon, before showing the other slaves in the slave pen bathing together. The book doesn’t mention anything about taking baths together with the slaves.
In the book, it says that Eliza’s son Randall was sold first, before Eliza and her daughter Emily travel to another slave market, where Eliza was sold without her daughter since Burch thought he’d get a lot of money for her. In the movie however, Eliza, Randall, Emily, and Platt (name given to Solomon, telling him that’s his original name) were lined up in a...

...﻿TwelveYears A Slave
Solomon Northup
22 Chapters
Chapter 1. Solomon describes his life as a free man, in a free state in which he were born and free for thirty years, married with children, telling the time he spends with his family and making a living through his many trades, including farming, lumberjack, and mostly performing on the violin.
Chapter 2. Solomon had been asked with pay, to play his violin for the circus with a pay of four dollars a day. Without speaking to his wife first about it, he agrees. He then has a few drinks with his so-called friends in which he is drugged with the help of two slaves. He then awakens to find himself chained to the floor.
Chapter 3. Reading how much some people could hate a black woman so much for what she is, is crazy. Words can’t explain it. Why in the hell would you even have a slave if all you’re going to do is hate them for who they are. Eliza is dead and placed to rest. I bet Mrs. Berry is happy.
Chapter 4. Life sucks. Solomon is moved from Washington to Virginia, heading towards New Orleans on board a massive vessel, full of tobacco. On his way he meets a number of slave men and women, and makes a note on their similarities and differences.
Chapter 5. Boat ride for a once in a lifetime experience, which actually still happens today coming from overseas. You got to know that anybody pined to a slave...

...The narrator who expresses his thoughts in the 17th chapter of TwelveYears a Slave is a man by the name of Solomon Northup. As it is told from his point of view, the typical conditions that slaves faced in 1850 were harsh punishments. He goes into great detail of how he had seen and heard of many slaves who would do whatever was necessary to escape from the torture of working on plantations under their master’s orders. He as well as one of his companions, Wiley, were under their master, Epps, rule. The plantation in which they had to work was located in Bayou Boeuf. Northup discussed how one day Wiley left the plantation without telling any of the other slaves including his wife. It was weeks before Wiley was discovered by a white man as Wiley was trying to figure out a way to cross the Red River. He was put in jail and soon recognized by Mistress Epps uncle. Wiley was taken out of jail by this man where he would soon be turned over to Epps once again. Wiley was sent back to the plantation with a note for Epps saying not to beat the runaway slave. Epps simply ignored the note, and Wiley faced brutal beatings. Later in the chapter, Northup goes on to say how another slave, Augustus, was found by the master’s dogs, and unfortunately suffered a brutal death. Solomon Northup was one who wanted to live a free and normal life just as every other...

...environment, Du Bois had little direct experience with the social, political, and economic exclusion of blacks before he went south to attend Fisk University in 1885.
After graduating from Fisk University, Du Bois went to Harvard, 1888 to 1892, where he completed a second baccalaureate degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in history. He studied philosophy with William James, George Santayana, and Josiah Royce, whose thoughts on individualism, community, pragmatism, and the use of ideas to promote social change influenced Du Bois’s thinking throughout his long career as an activist and writer. His advanced study led to his earning a Ph.D. in history at Harvard and the distinction of having his dissertation, The Suppression of the Slave Trade in the United States of America, published as the first volume of the Harvard Historical Studies in 1896.
The new social science held that one should seek the “truth” of the human history through an examination of a range of historical documents: the Congressional Record, the census, newspapers, private papers, and so forth. Study of such primary sources would allow the scholar to write a comprehensive view of any historical era or issue. During the initial period of his career, Du Bois utilized the new social science methodology as a researcher and teacher at Wilberforce University (1894–96), the University of Pennsylvania (1897), and Atlanta University (1897–1910). Between 1896 and 1905, he conducted studies...

...Northup, Solomon. TwelveYears A Slave. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2007.
Solomon Northup’s TwelveYears a Slave is a self-written narrative on the difficult and grueling life that he encountered. This story talks about his life from birth, being born a free man, all the way through his years of slavery and then once again being freed. Solomon Northup in no way tries to make one feel a certain way on the subject of his slavery. He only tries to give an exact representation of what he endured along with what and whom he encountered along the way. By doing so he provided readers with an option to decide for themselves the way that they feel on the subject of his life and also slavery in general. He seems to be a very well educated man and also extremely qualified to write a book of this magnitude.
Northup’s depiction of his life is hard to fathom since he once was living the life that he dreamed of then it was all taken away from him in an instant because he wanted to be successful for his family. The story begins with Solomon, a New Yorker, being a free man because of the fact that the patriarch of the Northup family had died which then in part made his father, Mistus, a free man. Solomon grew up doing farm work, but also educated himself by reading in his spare time as well as playing his violin, which he loved so dearly. He later married his wife, Anne...

...sold him into slavery. He was subsequently sold at auction in New Orleans. Northup served a number of masters—some brutally cruel and others whose humanity he praised. After years of bondage, he came into contact with an outspoken abolitionist from Canada, who sent letters to notify Northup's family of his whereabouts. An official state agent was sent to Louisiana to reclaim Northup, and he was successful through a number of coincidences. After he was freed, Northup filed kidnapping charges against the men who had defrauded him, but the lengthy trial that followed was ultimately dropped because of legal technicalities, and he received no remuneration. Little is known about Northup's life after the trial, but he is believed to have died in 1863.
TwelveYears a Slave was recorded by David Wilson, a white lawyer and legislator from New York who claimed to have presented "a faithful history of Solomon Northup's life, as [I] received it from his lips" (p. xv). Dedicated to Harriet Beecher Stowe and introduced as "another Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," Northup's book was published in 1853, less than a year after his liberation. It sold over thirty thousand copies. It is therefore not only one of the longest North American slave narratives, but also one of the best-selling.
The first two chapters of TwelveYears a Slave relate the Northup family history,...